No professional MMA promotion has suffered more from the COVID-19 pandemic than the Professional Fighters’ League. The PFL was the only major MMA organization to not hold a single event in 2020, canceling the scheduled season entirely. At times over the ensuing months it seemed questionable whether the PFL would ever return at all.
Aside from news of occasional signings, it was out of sight, out of mind for the PFL throughout 2020. Several of its stars, like women’s lightweight champ Kayla Harrison, took fights elsewhere, and others publicly espoused their frustration with the organization. But after all this, it looks like we’re finally gearing up for the PFL’s next go-around.
We still don’t 100 percent know what the 2021 PFL season is going to look like. The signing of former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum would augur a heavyweight tournament, Rory MacDonald is expected to headline a welterweight tournament, and we should see boxing superstar Claressa Shields to be in the PFL cage as well sometime this year. But, on Tuesday, we learned a couple of things for sure: the PFL is going to be back on April 23, and it’ll have featherweights and lightweights shooting for $1 million prizes.
It’s the first indicator of real, concrete 2021 plans we’ve gotten from the PFL. We have a date, and we have some names locked in. To MMA fans, a few will be familiar. All in all, they look like a couple pretty good groups of fighters – but in case you need a refresher, here’s a glimpse at five names you’ll probably need to know if you plan on getting into the PFL once it starts back up.
On the roster (still incomplete, I might add) that the PFL announced on Tuesday, one name stood out above all others: former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis, who will fight outside the Octagon for the first time in a decade this year. Pettis represents one of the biggest free-agent captures in the organization’s history – although rumors had linked him to the PFL for a couple months before his signing in December, he was still one of the better 155-pounders in the UFC, and the organization reportedly wanted him back.
Pettis is one of the last relevant stars to have burst onto the scene with the old WEC, where he was the perfect young wonderkid who could do no wrong. Pettis punctuated his fighting style with bursts of athleticism and pure creativity the likes of which had been rarely seen – the “Showtime Kick,” in the closing moments of his title win over Benson Henderson in the final fight in the promotion’s history, still stands as the highlight of his career and one of the most dramatic moments in MMA history.
Pettis beat Henderson again to win the UFC title in 2013, when he was just 26 years old. At the time, it seemed like he was destined for one of the all-time great careers. That hasn’t quite happened: he lost the belt two fights later to Rafael dos Anjos and has since lost more than he’s won, bouncing between featherweight, lightweight and welterweight.
Pettis’ fighting style has always been a bit too wild, raw and unrestrained for him to consistently thrive against the world’s very best. Nevertheless, while he lost quite a few fights over the last few years, they’ve unanimously been to elite guys: dos Anjos, Eddie Alvarez, Edson Barboza, Max Holloway, Dustin Poirier, Nate Diaz, Carlos Diego Ferreira, Tony Ferguson (in a fucking insane brawl). That’s one hell of a list!
And along the way, he’s still managed to beat fighters like Michael Chiesa and Charles Oliveira, while also becoming the only man to knock out Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson in 2017 – in true Pettis style, it was with a Superman punch. And in December, Pettis looked quite good in his final UFC appearance, a unanimous decision win over Alex Morono, getting into his groove on the feet and showcasing that Showtime style we love so much.
Pettis’ physical gifts don’t seem to have diminished much at 34 years old, and no one the PFL can offer him has been repeatedly tested at the level he has over the last decade. And no one, in turn, can likely match his pure talent and ability. He’ll enter the 2021 season as the prohibitive favorite at 155.
But again, I’m not here to tell you it’s just gonna be easy. A lot can go wrong on the path to winning a million bucks. And if Pettis wants to walk away with the big check, he’s likely going to have to go through the reigning two-time champ, Natan Schulte, to do it.
A 28-year-old Brazilian who debuted with the World Series of Fighting in 2017, Schulte has gone undefeated since the WSOF rebranded to the PFL the next year – 9-0-1 in his last 10 fights, twice taking home the $1 million with unanimous decision wins over UFC vet Rashid Magomedov in 2018 and Loik Radzhabov, another top contender this upcoming season, in 2019.
Dating back to the early years of his career, Schulte has won 19 of his last 21 fights. How has he done it? A relentless pressure style, mixing heavy leg kicks with a punishing clinch game and strong submission abilities.
Schulte just seems like an annoying-ass dude to fight. The Radzhabov fight was a pretty good display of why. Schulte isn’t a great technical striker and he’s very hittable, but his chin, cardio and durability are all excellent – he walks through your punches and keeps coming, wearing you down in the clinch, wearing you down with constant leg kicks, until eventually you’re a shell of yourself.
Schulte has a judo background and you see him use those skills extensively when he’s in the cage. And so far, it’s all been enough to help him clear some rather large sums of money in the PFL. Still in his 20s, he has plenty of growing he can still do – I’m fascinated to see how he matches up with Pettis after such a long layoff.
But that’s not all! PFL returns another two-time champion on the other half of its roster in featherweight king Lance Palmer, someone who’s put in more reps in the organization than anyone. Palmer was a two-time WSOF champ before the rebrand and is a perfect 8-0 since the shift to the tournament system, winning two $1 million prizes at 145 pounds.
At 33 years old, Palmer has thoroughly established himself as one of the best featherweights in the world outside of the banner of the UFC. Palmer was a highly decorated wrestler before moving to MMA after college: a four-time All-American with the Ohio State Buckeyes, he holds mat victories over multiple future Olympic and NCAA champs.
He graduated from Ohio State in 2010, debuted as a mixed martial artist the next year, and has just kept fucking wrestling, baby. Now, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it’s exciting to watch Palmer fight. He hits you with a double-leg takedown and stays on top of you until he gets a unanimous decision – sometimes he’ll submit you, but that’s less common.
They used to call this style “lay and pray” and deride fighters like Palmer. Still, you have to appreciate his success. Opponents know exactly what Palmer is going to try to do to them, and they cannot stop it.
In a sense, it’s a tad surprising to see Palmer here: he’s been very vocal about his dissatisfaction with the PFL since the shutdown, and publicly requested his release from the company in July after a bizarre online beef that started with his dad posting racist shit on social media. But yet, here he is, back in the saddle. He’ll probably end up $1 million richer for it.
This year’s group of featherweights aiming to knock Palmer off includes some interesting names: UFC veteran Sheymon Moraes, well-regarded Brit Brendan Loughnane and one of Palmer’s old wrestling rivals, Bubba Jenkins, a former national champion at Arizona State who has had an up-and-down run after moving to MMA in 2011.
But my pick to give Palmer his biggest test is the only other man returning from the 2019 tournament. In the quarterfinals of PFL’s most recent featherweight competition, Daniel Pineda – who’s since gone onto the UFC – knocked Movlid Khaybulaev out in just 26 seconds. It was the first loss of the Russian’s career. Or, rather, it would have been, except for the fact that Pineda failed a drug test and the fight was vacated.
Khaybulaev kept his undefeated record – he’s now 15-0-1 – but was out of the tournament regardless. He’s spent the ensuing months training with Khabib Numagomedov in Dagestan, and we’ll see if 2021’s the year he puts it together. Khaybulaev has teased a real talent for violence in the past: here’s him annihilating Damon Jackson, now with the UFC, with a flying knee in the only move of the fight.
Khaybulaev is one of the PFL fighters who stayed at least a little bit busy in 2020. He had a fight in Abu Dhabi back in November, fighting veteran Zaka Fatullazade and making things look easy: he took him down right away, got his back, and tapped him with a rear-naked choke in a little over a minute. No mess.
It might take a guy with Khaybulaev’s finishing instincts to knock Palmer off his pedestal. Hopefully we’ll find out the answer.
One of the feel-good sports stories of 2020 was Clay Collard, a middling UFC dropout who somehow, for a few months, became one of the hottest properties in the world of boxing. Collard went 1-3 in a brief UFC stint from 2014-15 – his first UFC fight was against Max Holloway, that’s a hell of an introduction – before giving pro boxing a shot.
Collard found his way onto the undercards of some pay-per-view fights – he notably fought on the prelims of the hyped Canelo Alvarez-Sergey Kovalev bout in 2019 – and was positioned as an opponent for several hot young prospects. But as it turns out, Collard is tough as nails, and not that bad at this boxing thing. He ripped off five straight wins in 2020, and I’m telling you, straight up, for a little while everyone in boxing was talking about Clay Collard.
Collard’s win streak finally ended in December, and now here he is, back in the cage to resume his MMA career. Collard hasn’t taken a mixed martial arts bout since April 2019, before he really committed himself to boxing full-time. But his past experience on the highest level of mixed martial arts, plus the notoriety he’s built up over the last year, makes him one of the more intriguing names in this 155-pound group.
Collard fights were always a fun watch during his previous MMA career, and they sure as hell were in boxing. The guy is a born scrapper with a great chin, talent on the feet and a ton of heart. Maybe his time focusing on boxing has refined his striking ability a bit more. All I know is, I’m really looking forward to seeing what he’s got.
The Big Fight 